Wednesday, August 13, 2014

RPGaDay 13: Most Memorable Character Death

Over the years there have been untold amounts of character deaths, so many that focusing on a single event is hard to do.

There was the Thief in Ravenloft that sacrificed himself for his Paladin friend so the Paladin and his betrothed could escape.

There was the Paladin being killed by his betrothed shortly after because he went berserk when his friend died, killing off the foe in Ravenloft, and then, beset by grief attempted suicide, multiple times. The Paladin thought he had lost his Paladinhood and was trying to commit suicide (he had not, his powers had faded a bit because he was in Ravenloft, unfortunately, with attempting suicide he did lose his Paladinhood).

There was the 12yr old boy in SLA Industries that sacrificed himself so his friends from the orphanage could live. (There were other ways out.)

In a D&D game the PCs threw a lavish funeral for Timmy. An NPC boy of 13 who wanted to be a fighter and protect his village, only to be killed when the village was set upon by a pack of werewolves, leading the party into a revenge-war vs the werewolf pack.

One time, in a Vampire LARP the following conversation took place:
Me: Hey man, I am sorry I diablerized your quadriplegic character
Him: My character wasn't a quadriplegic...
Me: He was when I diablerized him.

Over the past 30 years, there have been so many, lol. No, you do not hear about my characters dying, because I mostly GM.

The first character I ever played, he died, viciously choked to death, by the DM character that was traveling with us, because the DM did not want me playing (I was 9 or 10 IIRC).

There seems to be a point, where if I think hard enough, I can remember each and every death in the games I have run. I try to make the characters significant enough that if they die, we can remember why they died.

Some were just bad decisions, like trying to cross the street during a firefight. Some were bad luck, following a van full of terrorists on a hover board.